V. I. Lenin

Heroes of Fraud and the Mistakes of the Bolsheviks[1]

Written:September 22, 1917First Published:1917 in Rabochy Put No. 19Source:Lenin’sCollected
      Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972,
      pp. 43-51Translated:Yuri Sdobnikov and George
      Hanna, Edited by George HannaTranscription & HTML Markup:Charles
      Farrell and David WaltersOnline Version:Lenin Internet ArchiveNovember,
      2000

The so-called Democratic Conference is over. Thank God, one more
      farce is behind us and still we are advancing, provided fate has
      no more than a certain number of farces in store for our
      revolution.

In order correctly to judge the political results of the
      Conference, we must attempt to ascertain its precise class
      significance as indicated by objective facts.

Further break-up of the government parties, the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks; their obvious loss of
      the majority among the revolutionary democrats; one more step
      towards linking up Mr. Kerensky and Messrs. Tsereteli, Chernov
      and Co. and exposing the Bonapartism they share—such is the
      class significance of the Conference.

In the Soviets, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks
      have lost their majority. They therefore have had to resort to a
      fraud—they have violated their pledge to call a new
      congress of the Soviets in three months. They have evaded
      reporting back to those who elected the Central Executive
      Committee of the Soviets; and they have rigged the "Democratic"
      Conference. The Bolsheviks spoke of this fraud prior to the
      Conference, and the results fully confirmed their
      correctness. The Lieberdans[2]and the Tseretelis, Chernovs and Co. saw
      that their majority in the Soviets was dwindling, therefore they
      resorted to a fraud.

Arguments like that which says that co-operatives and also
      "properly" elected city and Zemstvo representatives "are already
      of great significance among the democratic organisations", are
      so flimsy that it is nothing but crass hypocrisy to advance them
      seriously. First of all, the Central Executive Committee was
      elected by the Soviets, and its refusal to deliver a report and
      relinquish office tothe Soviets, is a Bonapartist
      fraud. Secondly, the Soviets represent revolutionary democracy
      insofar as they are joined by those who wish to fight in a
      revolutionary way. Their doors are not closed to members of the
      co-operatives and city dwellers. Those same
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks ran the Soviets.

Those who remainedonlyin the co-operatives, who
      confined themselvesonlyto municipal (city and
      Zemstvo) work, voluntarily separated themselves from the ranks
      of revolutionary democracy, thereby attaching themselves to a
      democracy that was either reactionary or neutral. Everybody
      knows that co-operative and municipal work is donenot
      onlyby revolutionaries, butalsoby
      reactionaries; everybody knows that people are elected to
      co-operatives and municipalities primarily for work that isnotof general political scope and importance.

The aim of the Lieberdans, Tsereteli, Chernov and Co. when they
      rigged the Conference was to bring up reserves secretly from
      among the adherents ofYedinstvoand "non-partisan"
      reactionaries. That was the fraud they perpetrated. That was
      their Bonapartism, which allies them with the Bonapartist
      Kerensky. They robbed democracy while hypocritically keeping up
      democratic appearances—this is the essence of the matter.

Nicholas II stole, figuratively, large sums from democracy. He
      convened representative institutions but gave the landowners a
      hundredfold greater representation than the peasants. The
      Lieberdans, Tseretelis, and Chernovs steal petty sums from
      democracy; they convoke a Democratic Conference wherebothworkers and peasants point with full justice to
      the curtailment of their representation, to lack of
      proportionality, todiscriminationin favour of members
      of the co-operatives and municipal councils closest to the
      bourgeoisie (and reactionary democracy).

The Lieberdans, Tseretelis and Chernovs have parted ways with
      the masses of poor workers and peasants. They saved themselves
      by the fraud that keeps their Kerensky going.

The demarcation of classes is progressing. A protest is growing
      in the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, a direct
      split is maturing because the "leaders" have betrayed the
      interests of the majority of the population. The leaders are
      relying on the support of aminority, in defiance of
      the principles of democracy. Fraud isinevitableas far
      as they are concerned.

Kerensky is revealing himself more and more as a Bonapartist. He
      was considered a Socialist-Revolutionary. Now we know that he is
      not merely a "March" Socialist-Revolutionary who ran over to
      them from the Trudoviks "for advertising purposes". He is an
      adherent of Breshko-Breshkovskaya, the Socialist-Revolutionary
      Mrs. Plekhanov, or Mrs. Potresov in theirDyen.The
      so-called Right wing of the so-called socialist parties, the
      Plekhanovs, Breshkovskayas, Potresovs, is where Kerenskybelongs; this wing, however, does not differ
      substantially from the Cadetsin anything.

The Cadets have good reason to praise Kerensky. He pursuestheirpolicies and confers with them and with Rodzyankobehind the back of the people; he has been exposed by
      Chernov and others as conniving with Savinkov, a friend of
      Kornilov's. Kerensky is aKornilovite; by sheeraccidenthe has had a quarrel with Kornilov himself,
      but he remains in the most intimate alliance with other
      Kornilovites. This is afact, proved by the revelations
      about Savinkov, byDyelo Narodaand by the continuation
      of the political game, Kerensky's "ministerial leapfrog" with
      the Kornilovites disguised under the name of the "commercial and
      industrial class".

Secret pacts with the Kornilov gang, secret hobnobbing (through
      Tereshchenko and Co.) with the imperialist "Allies"; secret
      obstruction and sabotage of the Constituent Assembly; secret
      deception of the peasants by way of service to Rodzyanko, i.e.,
      the landowners (by doubling the price of bread)—this is
      what Kerensky isreallydoing. This is hisclasspolicy. This is his Bonapartism.

To conceal this from the Conference, the Lieberdans, Tseretelis
      and Chernovs had to resort to a fraud.

The Bolshevik participation in this hideous fraud, in this
      farce, had the same justification as their participation in the
      Third Duma[3]; even in a "pigsty" we must uphold our
      line, even from a "pigsty" we must send out material exposing
      the enemy for the instruction of the people.

The difference, however, is this, that the Third Duma was
      convened when the revolution was obviously ebbing, while at
      present there is an obvious upsurge of anew revolution; of the scope and the pace of this upsurge, however, we
      unfortunately know very little.

*    *    *

The most characteristic episode of the Conference was, in my
      opinion, Zarudny's speech. He tells us that as soon as Kerensky
      "as much as hinted" at reorganising the government, all the
      ministers began to hand in their resignations. "The following
      day," continues the naïve, childishly naïve (a good thing
      if he isonlynaïve), Zarudny, "the following day,
      notwithstanding our resignation, we were called, we were
      consulted, and finally we were prevailed upon to stay."

"General laughter in the hall," remarks at this point the
      officialIzvestia.

Gay folk, those participants in the Bonapartist deception of the
      people by the republicans. We are all revolutionary
      democrats—no joking!

"From the very beginning," says Zarudny, "we heard two things;
      we were to strive to make the army capable of fighting, and to
      hasten peace on a democratic basis. Well, as far as peace is
      concerned, I do not know whether, during the six weeks I have
      been a member of the Provisional Government, the Provisional
      Government has done anything about it. I did not notice
      it. (Applause and a voice from the audience: "It did
      nothing",Izvestiaremarks.) When I, as a member of the
      Provisional Government, inquired about it, I received no
      reply. . . ."

Thus speaks Zarudny, according to the report of the officialIzvestia.And the Conference listen in silence,
      tolerate such things, do not stop the orator, do not interrupt
      the session, do not jump to their feet and chase out Kerensky
      and the government! How could they? These "revolutionary
      democrats" are for Kerensky to a man!

Very well, gentlemen, but then, wherein does the term
      "revolutionary democrat" differ from the terms "lackey" and
      "scoundrel"?

It is natural that these lackeys are capable of roaring with
      laughter when "their" Minister, noted for his rare naïvety or
      rare stupidity, tells them how Kerensky keeps removing and
      replacing ministers (in order to come to terms with the Kornilov
      gang behind the hack of the people and "in full privacy"). It is
      not surprising that the lackeys keep silent when "their"
      Minister, who seems to have taken general phrases about peace
      seriously without seeing their hypocrisy, admits that he did not
      even receive a reply to his question about real steps towards
      peace. Such is the fate of lackeys, to allow themselves to be
      fooled by the government. But what has this to do with
      revolution, what has it to do with democracy?

Would it be surprising if revolutionary soldiers and workers
      were to get the idea that it would be good if the ceiling of the
      Alexandrinsky Theatre were to fall and crush all that gang of
      pitiful scoundrels who can sit there in silence when it is being
      demonstrated to them that Kerensky and Co. are fooling them with
      their talk about peace, who can roar with laughter when they are
      told as clearly as can be by their own ministers that
      ministerial leapfrog is a farce (concealing Kerensky's dealings
      with the Kornilovites). God save us from our friends, we can
      cope with our enemies ourselves! God save us from these
      claimants to revolutionary democratic leadership, we can cope
      with the Kerenskys, Cadets and Kornilovites ourselves!

And now I come to the errors of the Bolsheviks. To have confined
      themselves to ironic applause and exclamations at such a moment
      was an error.

The people are weary of vacillations and delays. Dissatisfaction
      is obviously growing. A new revolution is approaching. The
      reactionary democrats, the Lieberdans, Tseretelis and others,
      wish only todistractthe attention of the people with
      their farce of a "conference",keep them busywith it,cutthe Bolsheviksofffrom the
      masses, andprovidethe Bolshevik delegates with the
      unworthy occupation of sitting and listening to the Zarudnys!
      And the Zarudnys are not the least sincere of them!

The Bolsheviks should have walked out of the meeting in protest
      and not allowed themselves to be caught by the conference trap
      set to divert the people's attention from serious questions. The
      Bolsheviks should have left two or three of their 136 delegates
      for "liaison work", that is, to report by telephone the moment
      the idiotic babbling came to an end and the voting began. Theyshould not have allowed themselves to be kept busywith
      obvious nonsense for the obvious purpose of deceiving the people
      with the obvious aim ofextinguishingthe growing
      revolution by wasting time on trivial matters.

Ninety-nine per cent of the Bolshevik delegation ought to have
      gone to the factories and barracks; that was the proper place
      for delegates who had come from all ends of Russia and who,
      after Zarudny's speech, could see the full depth of the
      Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik rottenness. There, closer
      to the masses, at hundreds and thousands of meetings and talks,
      they ought to have discussed the lessons of this farcical
      conference whose obvious purpose was only to give a respite to
      the Kornilovite Kerensky and make it easier for him to try new
      variations of the "ministerial leapfrog" game.

The Bolsheviks, it turned out, had a wrong attitude to
      parliamentarism in moments of revolutionary (and not
      constitutional) crises, an incorrect attitude to the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

How it happened can be understood—history made averysharp turn at the time of the Kornilov revolt. The
      Party failed to keep pace with the incredibly fast tempo of
      history at this turning-point. The Party allowed itself to be
      diverted, for the time being, into the trap of a despicable
      talking-shop.

They should have left one hundredth of their forces for that
      talking-shop and devoted ninety-nine hundredths to the masses.

If the turn taken by history called for a compromise with the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks (personally I believe
      it did) the Bolsheviks should have proposed it clearly, openly
      and speedily, so that they couldimmediately turn to
      accountthe possible and probable refusal of the
      Bonapartist Kerensky's friends to agree to a compromise with
      them.

The refusal was already indicated by articles inDyelo
      NarodaandRabochaya Gazeta on the eveof the
      Conference. The masses should have been told as officially,
      openly and clearly as possible, they should have been told
      without theloss of a minute, that the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks had rejected our offer
      of a compromise—Down with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
      Mensheviks! The Conference could have afforded "to laugh" at the
      naïveté of Zarudny to the accompaniment ofthisslogan in the factories and barracks!

The atmosphere of a certain enthusiasm for the Conference and
      the situation surrounding it seems to have been built up from
      various sides. Comrade Zinoviev made a mistake in writing about
      the Commune so ambiguously (ambiguously, to say the least) that
      it appeared that the Commune, although victorious in Petrograd,
      might be defeatedas in France in 1871.This is
      absolutely untrue. If the Commune were victorious in Petrogradit would be victoriousthroughout Russia. It was a
      mistake on his part to write that the Bolsheviks did right in
      proposing a proportional composition for the Presidium of the
      Petrograd Soviet. The revolutionary proletariat would never do
      anything worth whilein the Sovietas long as the
      Tseretelis were allowed proportional participation; to let them
      in meantdepriving ourselvesof the opportunity to
      work, it meantthe ruinof Soviet work. Comrade Kamenev
      was wrong in delivering the first speech at the Conference in a
      purely "constitutional" spirit when he raised the foolish
      question of confidence or non-confidence in the government. If,
      at such a meeting, it wasnot possibleto tellthe
      truthabout the Kornilovite Kerensky that hadalreadybeen told both inRabochy
	  Putand the MoscowSotsial-Demokrat,why not refer to those
      papers andmake it well known to the massesthat the
      Conference did not want to listen to the truth about the
      Kornilovite Kerensky?

It was a mistake on the part of the Petrograd workers'
      delegations to send speakers tosucha conference after
      Zarudny had spoken and the situation had been made clear. Why
      cast pearls before Kerensky's friends? Why divert the attention
      of proletarian forces to a farcical conference? Why did those
      delegations not go quite peacefully and legally to the barracks
      and the more backward factories? That would have been a million
      times more useful, essential, serious and to the point than the
      journey to the Alexandrinsky Theatre and chats with co-operators
      who sympathise withYedinstvoand Kerensky.

Ten soldiers or ten workers from a backward factory who have
      become politically enlightenedare worth a thousand times
      morethan ahundreddelegates hand-picked from
      various delegations by the Lieberdans. Parliamentarism should be
      used, especially in revolutionary times, not to waste valuable
      time over representatives of what is rotten, butto use the
      example of what is rotten to teach the masses.

Why should those same proletarian delegations not "use" the
      Conference to publish, say, two posters explaining that the
      Conference is a farce andto displaythem in barracks
      and factories? One of the posters could depict Zarudny in a
      fool's cap, dancing on the stage and singing the song "Kerenskysackedus, Kerenskytookusback".Around him stand Tsereteli, Chernov, Skobelev and a co-operator
      arm-in-arm with Lieber and Dan, all rolling with
      laughter. Caption—They are Happy.

Poster number two. Zarudny again in front of the same audience
      saying "I asked about peace for six weeks.I got no
      answer".The audience is silent, their faces express
      "statesmanlike importance". Tsereteli looks particularly
      important as he writes in his notebook "What a fool that Zarudny
      is! The imbecile should be carting dung instead of being a
      minister. He is an advocate of the coalition and undermines it
      worse than a hundred Bolsheviks! He was a minister but he never
      learned to speak like one, he should have said, 'I continuously
      followed the campaign for peace for six weeks and I am fully
      convinced of its final success precisely under the coalition
      government in accordance with the great idea of Stockholm, etc.,
      etc.' Then evenRusskaya
      Volyawould have praised Zarudny as the knight of the
      Russian revolution."

Caption: "Revolutionary-democratic" conference of male prostitutes.

Written before the end of the Conference; change the first
      phrase to something like "In all essentials the so-called
      Democratic. . . ."

[1]An
      abridged version of the article was first published in No. 19 ofRabochy Putof October 7 (September 24),1917, under the
      title "Heroes of Fraud". It did not contain the part of Lenin's
      article which criticised the mistakes of the Bolsheviks in
      respect of the Democratic Conference, and also those of Zinoviev
      and Kamenev. It may have been this Lenin had in mind when in
      Chapter VI of the article "The Crisis Has Matured", which was
      circulated among members of the Central Committee, the Petrograd
      and Moscow Committees and the Soviets, he wrote with indignation
      that the Central Organ was deleting his statements about "the
      glaring errors on the part of the Bolsheviks. . ."  .

The first, second and third editions of Lenin'sCollected
      Workscontained the text of the article as it had appeared
      inRabochy Put, but in the fourth edition it was
      published in full, according to the manuscript; this translation
      follows the manuscript.

[2]An ironical nickname which stuck to the Mensheviks Lieber and
      Dan and their followers, after Demyan Bedny's feuilleton inSotsial-Demokrat[No. 141 of August 25 (September 7), 1917] under that title.

[3]On June 3 (16), 1907, the tsar issued a manifesto dissolving the
      Second State Duma and amending the electoral law. The
      landowners, industrialists and merchants were given many more
      seats in the Duma, and the workers and peasants many less. This
      was a gross violation of the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, and
      the Fundamental Law of 1906, which made all Government decrees
      subject to Duma approval. The Third Duma, which was elected
      under the new law and met on November 1 (14), 1907, was
      out-and-out reactionary.